


let me read you a story, let me read you a romance

by potato_writes



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Bedside Vigils, F/M, Injury Recovery, Post ADWD, Speculation, Tenderness, at its finest, help I made myself cry, in which jaime finally admits a few things to himself, moderate hurt/comfort, the author tries canon for the first time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26143951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potato_writes/pseuds/potato_writes
Summary: In the midst of a kingdom torn apart by war, there is a haven.In which Jaime watches over Brienne while she recovers on the Quiet Isle.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 18
Kudos: 104





	let me read you a story, let me read you a romance

**Author's Note:**

> so, this is different.
> 
> in lieu of working on my wip, I bring you my first foray into asoiaf canon that stems from my going absolutely feral over the Ghost Quartet quote that's acting as the title for this fic. the tone for this is probably not the canon voice at all, but I did my best and I'm actually rather proud of it. I won't pretend that this is a bold prediction for the future or anything like that, since I don't care about broader asoiaf canon enough to make those sorts of claims, but enjoy anyways.
> 
> the full lyric, if you're interested, is let me read you a story/let me read you a romance/I will read, you will listen/and this terrible night will pass, in case you also need to experience strong Emotions today (thanks Dave Malloy).
> 
> find me on Tumblr as potatothecat (I could add a link here but why would i)

In the midst of a kingdom torn apart by war, there is a haven.

An isle lies in the in-between, where the river and the sea meet under a clouded grey sky. Snow tumbles down from the clouds above, softly drifting to shroud the isle in a blanket of silence. The isle rises up in the arc of a hill, crowned with many buildings of different shapes and sizes that serve as a home to the brothers who live and worship there. Confronted with the looming promise of a snowstorm and rapidly dropping temperatures, the inhabitants of the isle have retreated indoors, huddling in their huts and shelters in order to keep out the cold wind now rising across the mudflats and sweeping up the sides of the hill.

A man stands in the door of one such hut, squinting up at the sky as he waits for the leader of the isle’s brothers to depart for his own shelter. He is dressed drably, in plain dark clothes unlike those he is accustomed to wearing while in the capital, now what seems to be a lifetime away. Only one of his hands is flesh, the other a rich golden sculpture that hangs limp and useless from the stump of his wrist. Grey streaks are beginning to show in his golden hair, though whether they be from age or from the stresses of the conflict tearing this kingdom apart is uncertain. Bright green eyes glint with some shrouded emotion as he gazes up at the mass of grey clouds and the light, feathery flakes they are depositing on the landscape around him.

Footsteps sound behind him, and he turns as the brother, clad in a long brown robe, walks out of the hut to join him in looking out at the wintery isle. “She is resting,” the brother tells him with a nod towards the door at their backs. “As she should be.”

The one-handed man nods, something akin to relief flickering across his face before he schools his features into emotionlessness. “Aye,” he murmurs, his voice thick. “As she should.”

Silence falls when neither man adds anything more to the conversation, only broken by the steadily rising wind howling across the bay beyond the mud protecting the isle from both the wrath of nature and the devastation of war. Several times, the one-handed man opens his mouth as if to speak before shutting it again. As if he cannot think of what to say, or fears the consequences of his words should he speak them aloud.

“She will recover,” the brother says softly, noticing the stiffness of his companion and his reluctance to speak. “She is strong, and the worst of the infection has passed. There is no need to be afraid any longer.”

The one-handed man swallows past the lump in his throat as a strange prickling begins at the back of his eyes. _I was not afraid,_ he wants to tell the brother. _I merely worried for the safety of a friend._ But he has become weary of lies in the past year, and he ran out of excuses for himself the day he came to this isle with a dying woman cradled in his arms.

The brother studies the one-handed man for a moment longer before nodding, a small smile crossing his face. “Stay with her,” he says, returning his gaze to the sky. “Read to her, soothe her nightmares, comfort her as you have been doing for her entire recovery. I believe it has done her well to have you with her.”

“I will,” the one-handed man vows before the brother walks away, retreating to the warmth of his own hearth across the isle. He owes her that much, at the very least. She protected him on their first journey together, showed him kindness he did not deserve back when he needed it most. This is the very least he can do to return the favour, to offer her the protection she once gave him.

He turns and heads inside, softly closing the door behind. The hut is small, no more than one room able to fit a bed, chairs, a table. A fire blazes merrily in the hearth, red and warm against the cold white landscape outside. The brother must have added more wood to the fire before he departed, for it blazes higher than it did when he was sent outside to await news of her progression, of her recovery. He holds his flesh hand by it for an instant, warming the chilled fingers before turning to the bed, and the woman lying within it.

There is more colour in her pale cheeks than yesterday, he notes with some relief. Laying his living hand upon her forehead reveals far less heat than before, a sign that her fever has broken at last after nights of sitting awake by her side with cool cloths gripped tightly in his hand. The vicious wound on her cheek is no longer so red and angry, and her sleep is peaceful, her breathing even and steady. 

_She is healing at last,_ he thinks, taking a seat on the edge of the bed and running his lone hand through the limp strands of her hair. She sighs in her sleep and pushes into the touch, a little. For a moment his heart leaps, thinking she is about to awaken for the first time since she fell that fateful day in the forest. But she settles, slipping back into the depths of a dream, and he silently berates himself for his foolish hope to see her eyes again at last.

He silently sends thanks to the gods for granting her rest. For days, perhaps weeks, he has seen her thrash and scream from nightmare after nightmare, has watch her sob and beg and weep while he sits by, helpless in the face of her misery. Her nightmares tear at his heart, open the still-fresh wound in his chest that reminds him her suffering is because of him, because he sent her off to do a task he was too afraid to do himself. _Look,_ his sister’s voice in his head says, cold and cruel. _Look what you have done to her. Her suffering is on you and you alone._

“I am glad to see you looking so well,” he says to her, shoving his dark thoughts back into the depths of his mind. She will not answer him, he knows, but he fell into the habit after several days of only her and the silent brothers for company and he has no intention of changing it now. “We all worried for you. The infection had plenty of time to work on you, and the Elder Brother feared it was beyond even his abilities to heal for a long while. It comforts me to know he was incorrect.”

It’s not nearly half of what he wants to say to her, of what he would likely say to her should she awaken from her poppy-induced slumber now. But he has never been very good at saying what he means.

 _Read to her,_ the Elder Brother had said before walking away, but he is not a strong reader, never has been. Books were his brother’s forte, his the sword.

Still, what else is there to do here? The brothers do not speak but once a week, and the only person on the isle he truly wishes to talk to lies fast asleep in the bed beside him. He is not yet desperate enough to begin conversing with the animals, though it is tempting on the particularly quiet days. He could practice his swordplay, but the task is made more difficult by lacking both a right hand and a partner to spar with, and he will not leave her behind despite having been urged to several times by the Elder Brother and the lady herself, before she succumbed to her wounds.

Reading it is, then, though that means venturing out into the storm to find books he has no true desire to read anyways. He does not want to leave her side now, not after all this time. And all the brothers have shut themselves in by now, on account of the storm brewing a little ways past the horizon. 

“What do you think?” he asks her, letting his hand slide out of her hair to tenderly cup her unwounded cheek in his palm. “Should I go out in search of some book to read you, or would you prefer a tale of my own making?”

She doesn’t answer. He didn’t expect her to.

There is a strange comfort to this, though. To sitting by her side and speaking even if she cannot respond, to telling her of the few exciting events on the isle and confessing his hopes, his fears, his realizations, his truths much like he did that day in the baths of Harrenhal. To being with her, here in a place where the war cannot touch them and they can experience peace for the first time in years.

“In truth,” he tells her once the silence stretches on too long, “I have no desire to leave your side a second time today. Once was bad enough after the struggles you and I endured in the night. But thank the gods that we are past that now, that you are recovering after such a harsh ordeal.”

And what an ordeal it was, though he doesn’t care to think on it yet. To see the conflict and misery on her face as he stood there facing judgement in the wood was one of the hardest things he’s ever endured, worse than the thousand betrayals he’s weathered since this damned war began. 

The worst, though, came after. Seeing her collapse to the ground, her injuries finally catching up with her, is something he hopes to never see again. The same goes for carrying her limp body through the woods and the snow, pleading with her all the while to fight against the pain while he prayed desperately, frantically for the gods to spare her and for their Septon guide to reveal the isle to him in as little time as possible.

“I feared you would die, you know,” he says quietly, staring down at her peaceful face, at the features he once mocked and derided when he was an angry prisoner and she was his unforgiving captor. “The Elder Brother tells me you nearly did die upon our arrival, once the Septon finally guided us here, to safety. I am glad you didn’t. I don’t think…it would have hurt a great deal to have you die in my arms when we were so close to a safe haven at last.”

It’s not the entire truth, but it will do for now. Even unconscious, she does not need to know what came after, how he screamed himself hoarse trying to get to her when the brothers took her from his embrace and brought her to this hut, how he wept at her bedside seeing her so still and pale and burning from fever, how he held her down when she spoke from nightmares all while shaking himself in despair at seeing her so fragile, so broken. She does not need to know the realization he came to when the Elder Brother pulled him out of her hut that first night and delivered a well-meaning ultimatum, nor the way he nearly fought the man until an accord benefitting him more than any other was reached at last.

And she doesn’t need to know his initial anger, when she first took him to that wood and he realized that she, too, had betrayed him, though less willingly than many others had. Nor does she need to know how swiftly his anger faded when he saw how her hands and voice trembled at the weight of what the outlaws wanted her to do, how she refused to kill him even though it meant her own life was forfeit.

She stirs in her sleep again, murmuring softly. Her words lack the urgency and fear stemming from nightmares, so he does not move from his position by her side, his hand stroking down her face, her hair. “Jaime,” she whispers, one hand twitching towards him before stilling once more. “Jaime. You’re here.”

“I’m here,” he agrees, bending down to press a gentle kiss to her forehead as she sighs contentedly and settles back into her slumber. “I’ll be here when you wake. Now sleep, Brienne. I’ll watch over you.”

And he does.

Day turns into night, gentle flakes turn into a swirling storm, but he does not stir from her side, not even as exhaustion claims him in the dead of night, not even in the early morning light when the Elder Brother steps into the hut and smiles warm and content at seeing Jaime Lannister, the one-handed knight who killed a king, holding Brienne of Tarth close to his chest as they sleep soundly in the peaceful haven that lies between the sea and the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> no, I have no idea what's happened to Hyle and Pod in this. I don't really care, either (except for Pod bc he is Baby). They might be on the Isle somewhere, but as we can see Jaime doesn't care enough about them to notice, well, anything besides Brienne.
> 
> I may possibly be giving Jaime too much credit when it comes to self-awareness, but we can also presume the Elder Brother had a talk with him off-screen that lead to him making a few realizations. I left this very open-ended for a reason, after all.


End file.
